Brian Bonin
Episode 388
13 JULY 2026
He was selected by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1992 National Hockey League Draft and went on to play with both them and the Minnesota Wild. Along the way in his professional hockey career, he also played for Cleveland and Kansas City of the International Hockey League and Syracuse, Adirondack, and Worcester of the American Hockey League. He also played two seasons in Switzerland. In 1996 he won a bronze medal playing for Team USA at the world championships in Austria. He had played his college hockey at the University of Minnesota and in his senior season there won the Hobey Baker Award, given to the most outstanding collegiate hockey player in the NCAA. Prior to his time as a Golden Gopher, he had been named Minnesota Mr. Hockey as the most outstanding senior high school hockey player in that state.
Notable guest quotes:
“My mom and dad did a decent job with faith. I feel I was not catechized quite well but had a very strong grandparent influence on my dad’s side. So, I would say they gave me an opportunity to understand the Catholic faith and to someday come back to it.”
“I basically played sports in four different seasons. Hockey was just the winter season. I actually did downhill skiing as well, even in the winter… I was also a skateboarder… I played baseball, soccer, tennis.”
“I was a chemistry major. But my studies fell off there as well. Hockey was really the focus.”
“The University of Minnesota has a good Newman Center. And I’d stop by and visit here and there… I mean, that’s all on me. Completely lazy. I look back, and it’s, I’m very, very disappointed… I was so, solely focused on sport.”
“For as good as I was, I think I was quite humble in some ways. Because when I even went to Minnesota, my first year there, I just wanted to fit in. I just was hopeful to play four years.”
“I was quite excited to start my professional career, thinking that I could move on from the college ranks and not only get paid but not have to go to school anymore.”
“For the three years in Pittsburgh, playing up and down in Cleveland, Kansas City, Adirondack, there’s a lot of movement because Pittsburgh was going through bankruptcy. So, it was a complete mess. Sometimes you didn’t get your paycheck. Complete mess, up and down, all over.”
“My ego took a huge hit. I mean huge. It doesn’t matter. When you climb the ladder, you always want more. So that crushed me. It absolutely crushed me. And I was not mentally strong enough for it. And I didn’t have an ego and the confidence that you need in pro sports. You can’t sit back and be humble.”
“I gotta basically have to say I had no faith. If somebody would have asked me, ‘Do you go to Mass on Sundays,’ the answer was yes. ‘Do you believe in God?’ Yes. ‘Do you believe in the one true faith?’ Yes. But in that, not very outspoken.”
“(I) got very lucky. In Cleveland, we had a men’s group, and they also had a faith group. And I just– I think I was just so down on my luck, something like that very much interested me.”
“No matter how you’re raised, we have that God size hole in our hearts, I believe.”
“All these little things of our faith that are so unique to us and so wonderful, I was intrigued and interested and wanted to learn more about the rosary, about adoration, about these things.”
“It is heaven on Earth. And what you can experience in Rome in all of our faith, I mean, it is the pinnacle.”
Related link:
Brian’s bio and career stats on Wikipedia